Ducks muzzled by champs

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LOS ANGELES The Kings have a neat way of introducing themselves on the Staples Center video board.

Each member of the starting lineup is pictured in front of his engraved name on the Stanley Cup.

Two of those names aren't in the picture for the defending champs: defensemen Willie Mitchell and Matt Greene, who were such diligent patrolmen in front of Jonathan Quick's net last season.

On Monday it was Jake Muzzin's time to start etching and sketching.

Muzzin is known for an irresistible shot, but first he and the other young Kings' D-men have to do the heavy lifting in their own end. For most of two periods they could not resist the Ducks' forwards, and Anaheim got into the third period tied 2-2 with valid reasons to think it should be leading.

But Anze Kopitar took a grand tour behind Viktor Fasth's net and fed a puck out to Slava Voynov, who made it 3-2, Kings, early in the third.,

And when Sheldon Souray drew the Ducks' first penalty of the game, Muzzin put on his welder's hat and started carving.

He got the puck high in the slot, looked off Fasth and the rest of the Ducks, and buzzed home the most important goal in the Kings' 5-2 victory – only the Ducks' third loss in regulation this season.

And it was a reminder that the Kings have medicated whatever Stanley Cup hangover they migiht have felt in late January.

Meanwhile, the Ducks lost their winning streak and Fasth's undefeated record. That was inevitable, but Coach Bruce Boudreau didn't like the defensive slippage he saw on the Kings' third and fourth goals.

“Our forwards had their guys on Brown's goal, but we left the middle of the ice open,” Boudreau said. “One of our defensemen (Bryan Allen) got caught on the boards and Cam (Fowler) didn't gap-up like he needed to. It was exactly like a goal he (Brown) scored last year to make it 3-2, and as soon as he got the puck I could see what he was going to do.”

On the go-ahead goal by Voynov, with Justin Williams pestering Fasth? Boudreau will look at the tape to see which Duck allowed Voynov time and space.

“This happens in all of sport,” Boudreau said. “When you outplay a team and you don't come away with the lead, it comes back to bite you every time.”

Saku Koivu acknowledged that the Ducks didn't have the juice to hold off the rampaging Kings at the end, with Anaheim having played Sunday night.

But he looked back at a power play early in the third period, when Dwight King hooked Bobby Ryan, who went scattering if he'd been in a Tarantino flick. The Ducks had solid chances and came away with nothing.

“We had great chances and didn't get anything going,” Koivu said. “Then they scored a couple, and for the last 10 minutes we ran out of gas a little bit, didn't get anything going.”

So the Ducks fell out of their 13-2-1 trees, but even now they've on a pretty strong limb.

Their trademark has been a refusal to let a pothole damage their axles. They have shown resilience, the lack of which was a vexation to Boudreau when he showed up two Decembers ago.

It hasn't been just the comebacks. It's how quickly the Ducks have dispelled the bad vibes.

In the victory over the Kings at home, Ryan Getzlaf answered a Kings goal in 1:44, and Kyle Palmieri did the same in 2:02.

In Detroit, Matt Beleskey struck back in 46 seconds to tie it, 1-1.

Later in that game Corey Perry created another 2-2 tie only 65 seconds after the Red Wings took the lead.

Against Nashville, Beleskey tied it 1-1 only 3:54 after the Ducks fell behind, and Patrick Maroon did the same thing later in that game, 6:37 after the Predators scored.

In the middle of a fervent second period Monday night, it happened again, when Koivu answered Dustin Penner's goal in 2:31. That put the Ducks up 2-1.

“Then we had chances to make it 3-1 or even 4-1,” Boudreau said.

They couldn't, and when Kopitar dug a puck on the boards and fed it to Brown in the middle, the Kings' captain zapped it off the crossbar. Oddly, the shot landed just outside the goal line before it spun back into the net for a 2-2 tie, 2:07 left in the period.

That adjourned a second period that showed why you can make the case that a Ducks-Kings game, these days, is the best show in Southern California sports.

On Monday the Kings showed they knew how to belt out the third verse like Shirley Bassey. Sounded a lot like “Ringfinger.”

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